JTA’s Harrison bats for skills training

LA SONJA HARRISON, president of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA), is batting for secondary-level students to be given the option to pursue a vocational skill or academics.

Speaking at the Rotary Club of Kingston’s weekly luncheon last Thursday, Harrison argued that the time has come for Jamaica to move away from traditional education by giving students a choice when it comes to selecting subjects geared toward vocational skills or academics.

She believes that the Jamaican economy would have been in better stead had previous legislators created an education system that did not focus on the academics at the fourth- and fifth-form levels, which forces students to choose academics-oriented subjects for matriculation to the regional Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) exams.

Also important for Harrison, the principal of a multi-grade school, is that “we have to take a look again at how it is that we’re speaking, our thought process and the narrative around education … Our education system, [if] you’re bright, you do academia; you’re dunce, you do skill”.

“Now, from I attended Immaculate [Conception], I asked why wasn’t I given the opportunity to do cosmetology and all of those things? When I went to university, I understood [the reason why]. They have the classical philosophy of education, Socrates and so most of our traditional high schools are influenced by that guiding philosophy. So, if you’re to be an excellent orator you must become the total man. [You] must know about history and law and literature and that kind of thing, hence that guide to their philosophy,” she said in explaining the reason for the bias towards academics.

Harris said some of the country’s brightest minds in the workforce could have been better utilised had they been given the option to pursue skills training. She argued that, for example, the island could have derived more benefits from its unique herbs and spices at the macroeconomic level had this been a priority of the Government.

“When we look at it today, had we channel some of our brightest minds to skill, what we call vocational learning ... we [would] be better off as a nation today. Some of those bright minds would have been applied to food chemistry and so we would make better uses of our resources, natural products that we have here,” she said.

Harrison said that Jamaica now needs to chart a plan of action with the aim of revamping the education system.

“The time has come, I believe, for us as a nation, to look at what our resources are. Look at where we want to take our nation, our greatest asset, our human capital. We chart a path that this is the plan of action. We will turn neither to the left nor to the right, and regardless of whichever P is in power, this is the plan and we are sticking to it as a people. That is what we need to do,” she said.

ainsworth.morris@gleanerjm.com